Study Plan | Next Step Test Prep

Posts Tagged “study plan”

Jul 21 2010

How to avoid LSAT burnout

Posted by John in LSAT, Schedules, Test taking, tags: Burnout, lsat, LSAT Studying, Plateauing, study plan

LSAT burnout is a serious disease with any combination of the following symptoms:

Pure hatred of the test and everything associated with it
Dropping preptest scores
Practice that doesn’t seem to go anywhere — you don’t feel yourself improving, and there’s no upward movement in scores

It’s important to distinguish burnout from two other distinct phenomenon: plateauing and laziness. Every student has a natural ceiling past which no amount of studying will move his/her score. This is why the world isn’t full of 180 scorers that started in the 140′s. This is natural; if you’re feeling very good in practice and scores just aren’t going up, you may be reaching this point. Congratulations – reaching your maximum score on a regular basis is the goal of studying. Laziness is what it sounds like — you’re just not working hard enough.

Students who are suffering burnout are usually doing so because they are working on the LSAT too much. A past student of ours was working a demanding full-time job, coming home, exercising, working on the LSAT for several hours, and then going to bed, each and every night. However, he took Saturdays off, and did a full preptest on Sunday. His Sunday scores were significantly higher than any of his other tests. See the pattern?

The lesson is that each person only has so many high quality hours in the day. Burnout is hard to avoid if you are working on the LSAT during low-quality hours. Students that have full-time jobs should consider taking every few nights off.

This is also why it’s so critical to start studying early. Students that try to cram a complete course of studying into 6 weeks or less simply won’t have enough high-quality hours in the day to make it work.

Hear that, October test-takers?

Next Step Test Preparation provides complete courses of one-on-one tutoring with an LSAT expert for less than the price of a commercial prep course. Email us or call 888-530-NEXT (6398) for a complimentary consultation.

No Comments »

Jul 12 2010

How distractions while studying can help improve your score

Posted by Beau in LSAT, Test taking, tags: Advice, lsat, study plan

Students often ask for recommendations on the best place to do LSAT studying. The answer depends on some extent to how you learn and where you are in the study process. At a high level, you generally want someplace without a lot of distraction or noise. In particular, when working through timed sections and full tests, if there are interruptions you will not get an accurate measure of your abilities. I see the breakdown going like this:

Initial month: (learning methodology): any reasonably quiet place, from a coffee shop to a library to your dorm room (door closed).
Middle months: (timed sections and full practice test with review): you definitely want to cut out noisier spots where you may be interrupted. Here it’s time to get serious and either find a quiet corner of your residence free of distraction or, better, go to the library
Final month: this is where ideal study situations change somewhat. During your last month of study, I believe it’s actually beneficial to not choose the most quiet spot in the world. This is because on test day there will be a variety of inevitable distractions: dropped pencils, sneezes, proctors answering the phone, etc. Taking full tests in absolute silence is an advantage you won’t have on test day; doing so in practice is akin to not filling in a bubble sheet on preptests. It’s just not the best simulation (especially because you can’t use earplugs on test day).
Final week: it won’t always be possible, but when it is it can pay to do a preptest or two in the building where your LSAT is going to be held. If this is a college, you can generally sneak into a lecture hall/classroom after hours. Being very familiar with your surroundings can be an important advantage on test day.

No Comments »

Dec 30 2009

Ideal LSAT Study Plan: 3 Months

Posted by John in LSAT, Schedules, Test taking, tags: 3 months, lsat, study plan

One of the benefits of private tutoring is that students get a study plan that’s personalized for them and that also evolves as they progress through the program. However, lots of people have asked for a basic self-study plan. Here’s an ideal study plan for 3 months.

Why 3 months? 3 months is about the right time to study if you can devote significant time to the LSAT (10-15 hours a week or so). I’ve certainly seen students prepare and get the scores they need in less time, but especially for those who are balancing school and work, 3 months is the right timeline. After about a 4-month timeframe, students start plateauing and reaching points of diminishing returns. It’s better to prepare semi-intensely for 3 months than to work on LSAT once a week for 6 months (or to cram for 1 month).

This plan is front-loaded with learning and is back-loaded with practice. It’s critical to lay down a solid foundation in methodology before you start taking timed tests (except for the diagnostic.

For this plan you’ll need the following books: